University fights energy crunch with alternative fuels

Ohio State has countered record-level natural gas costs this winter and saved a projected $1.2 million in January alone by burning alternative fuels at its McCracken Power Plant.

Natural gas costs for the University were $700,000 in January 2000; if the University had burned gas exclusively this January, the bill would have reached around $3.1 million, said Wallace C. Giffen, director of utilities in the Department of Physical Facilities.

But officials came up with a plan to burn oil and Ohio coal, which cost $1.9 million.

"We're not saving money -- it's avoided costs," Giffen said. "The cost went up. We were just able to control how far it went up."

McCracken is the dominant source of heat on campus, supplying steam, hot water or both to nearly 15 million square feet of campus, Giffen said. Six industrial boilers are housed at McCracken that use up to 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per year.

Giffen said one of the boilers is equipped to burn coal, while the others are capable of burning gas or oil. When the cost of gas surpassed $8.16 per 1,000 cubic feet, Giffen said Ohio State switched to oil and coal -- using processes designed to reduce pollution concerns associated with coal.

"We've never, ever seen natural gas prices this high," Giffen said. "The highest price we had ever seen was $5.83 (per 1,000 cubic feet) and that was back in the early 1980s."

Factors influencing the gas market this year are temperatures that are colder than recent winters, demand outweighing supply, and northern storage wells that are below capacity because their managers were waiting for gas prices to drop last summer before filling them -- something that never happened, Giffen said.

Saving on energy costs is nothing new for the Physical Facilites crew. Since 1984, the department has saved $26 million by buying natural gas from independent suppliers rather than Columbia Gas, Giffen said, which is a common practice among large users such as Ohio State. Until this year, Ohio State also received reduced rates by contracting for interruptible gas, meaning that if sub-zero weather created an unusually high demand, transportation of gas to the University would be interrupted to free up capacity for other users. Up until this year, interruptions ranged from two to five days a year, during which time the crew burned oil, Giffen said. Thus, the capacity already existed to burn alternative fuels.

While the University is cutting energy costs, it is also addressing pollution concerns raised by burning coal. "We burn high-sulfur Ohio coal, but we have a scrubber that removes 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 99.9 percent of particulates, mostly fly ash and smoke particles," Giffen said.

Of the six boilers at the McCracken Power Plant, only one is burning coal, he said. While four boilers are outdated and under design for replacement, Giffen said most of the oil is burned in the newest boiler, which meets the latest EPA emission standards.

Additionally, Ohio State and the Ohio Coal Development Office are teaming on a project designed to make coal burning more environmentally and economically friendly. The Ohio State Carbonate and Ash Reactivation (OSCAR) project combines the expertise of two disciplines within the College of Engineering -- chemical engineering and civil engineering -- and is jointly funded by Ohio State and the Ohio Coal Development Office of the Ohio Department of Development, said Ted Thomas, OSCAR project manager at Ohio State.

One segment of the project involves a patented, more economical process to clean sulfur from the smoke of coal-fired power plants, Thomas said. The other part involves the study of practical uses of coal combustion products such as fly ash and gypsum.

A pilot for the project will be built this summer and tested at the McCracken Power Plant for one year, beginning in late fall.

Besides determining that OSCAR works outside of the laboratory, the OSCAR goal is to demonstrate the use of byproducts in two types of construction projects, and to gather enough operational design data to allow the technology to be scaled up for commercial use, Thomas said. He said one of the challenges would be to see what kind of market would exist for coal combustion products. Approximately 25 percent of coal combustion products are currently being recycled, with 10 percent of the cement produced in the United States amended with fly ash.

Ashley to head California campus

Ohio State's engineering dean has accepted a position as chief academic administrator at a new University of California campus, subject to approval by California's Board of Regents and effective this summer.

David B. Ashley, the John C. Guepel Professor in Civil Engineering and dean of the College of Engineering, will become executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of California at Merced, the first new campus in 35 years in California's statewide system of higher education.

"I am humbled that I have been asked to serve in a leadership role in developing this new university," Ashley said. "My role will be to build this campus from the ground up, including defining all academic programs and hiring all the faculty for the first new research university of the 21st century."

"We are very sorry to see David Ashley leave Ohio State," said President William E. Kirwan. "I'll miss him as a colleague and a friend. He helped enhance Ohio State's nationally ranked College of Engineering, and I don't know a better individual to tackle the opportunity at the University of California."

Ashley joined Ohio State's engineering faculty in November 1997.

"David is an exceptionally talented, energetic and creative scholar and administrator," said Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray. "In the short time he has been with us, David has established a solid foundation for us to take the next steps for our College of Engineering to be one of the truly great colleges in the world."

The Times is a-changing the way OSU teaches biology

Instead of memorizing lists of forgettable vocabulary words, students in Steve Rissing's Biology 101 classes discuss issues like global warming and genetically modified foods and how they affect our lives.

Rissing, a professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology and also the director of Ohio State's introductory biology program, doesn't rely solely on the trusty textbook to teach his students. Rather, he uses articles from the New York Times to get across the bigger issues of biology. Starting this quarter, he required students taking his Biology 101 course to subscribe to the newspaper. He quizzes students each week, based in part on assigned articles.

Steve Rissing uses newspaper articles in his teaching to show the relevancy of biology issues.

"I don't want to give my students a vocabulary test," Rissing said. "I want to know if they understand some of the basic principles of science. It's a rough job, because K-12 science education stresses knowing vocabulary words. One way to help give meaning to the jargon is to show relevancy, to show the students that science means something to their lives. I can run further with a topic if students have read the newspaper article."

Rissing doesn't stick to stories only in the Times' science section. He looks for appropriate articles throughout the paper, whether in economics, health and nutrition, or world news.

"Almost every issue of the Times has a story that is applicable to something we will discuss in class," he said. Although he chooses articles based on their relativity to biology, class discussions often dip into the realms of other disciplines, like sociology and political science. He shows students that biology has real-world application beyond the memorization of plant names and skeleton parts.

While adding newspaper articles to a curriculum isn't a new idea, Rissing has carved out a unique approach to learning because of the way he uses the newspaper, said Kevin Cappallo, the national director of education sales for the New York Times. "Rissing's approach is different because he is looking to create a new curriculum that can be supported by a variety of nontraditional resources, including the Times," Cappallo said.

Students take Biology 101 because it fulfills a general education requirement for graduation. Rissing understands this, and encourages his students to learn about biology through its impact on society.

He asks his students to think about the ramifications of global warming -- what would it take to reduce global fossil fuel emissions and if it's possible; the necessity of government-imposed genetic screening for newborns; or whether food producers and distributors should be required to label genetically modified foods.

Getting 700 students -- the average number taking the class each quarter -- on the same page of the newspaper may sound overwhelmingly impossible, but Rissing said his approach has been quite successful. He asks students to form discussion groups and come to a conclusion, based on questions he has asked about a particular article. He also gives weekly quizzes. At the end of the quarter, students hand in a scrapbook filled with brief synopses of relevant Times articles.

"The students don't need to understand the chemical makeup of ozone, but they do need to understand the debate surrounding global warming," Rissing said. "They need to be literate enough to play a role in helping set policy based on sound science."

The Times is part of Ohio State's readership program, which began in 1999. Residence hall students can choose between the Times, USA Today or the Columbus Dispatch Monday through Friday. Off-campus students enrolled in Biology 101 can subscribe to the Times for $20 during the quarter they are taking the class. Off-campus students are normally charged 40 cents per issue, Monday through Friday, Cappallo said.

Rissing plans to continue using the Times in Biology 102, the follow-up course to 101. He also plans to invite on-campus experts into the classroom to provide more insight into current issues in science such as global warming, genetically modified foods and xenotransplantation (using animal organs in human transplant operations).

"It's exactly how I want to teach biology to nonmajors," Rissing said. "I don't want to spend my contact time with students by repeating what's already in the book."